Various types of bathing aids have been developed for those who have difficulty in standing up and/or bathing by themselves. Those people include the physically challenged, elderly and invalids, who are generally called “cared persons” hereinafter. Some bathing aids are constructed so that the cared person sitting on a wheelchair can be easily transferred from the wheelchair into a bathtub, into which hot water can be supplied.
An example of such bathing aids is disclosed in the Japanese Patent No. 2,628,568. The bathing aid includes a bathtub capable of rotating from a horizontal position where the open top of the bathtub is directed almost upward to a tilted position where its open top is obliquely directed. In the latter position, the front end of the bathtub is located close to the floor. In this position, the bathtub can be locked, allowing the cared person to be slid from the wheelchair into the bathtub, together with the seat unit. After receiving the cared person inside, the bathtub is unlocked, rotated to the horizontal position, and again locked in that position. Then, hot water is supplied into the bathtub to let the cared person bathe in a supine position.
The general situation of nursing care is such that caregivers have to do many jobs that require physical exertion, especially when they assist the cared person in taking a bath, as described above. Therefore, it has been desired to reduce the workload on the caregiver, especially when the work requires physical strength.
In the aforementioned conventional bathing aid, the seat unit of the wheelchair can be slid into the bathtub, as described above, so that the heavy work of manually lifting the cared person and setting her or him into the bathtub is eliminated, and the workload on the caregiver is reduced. For those who are weak in physical strength, however, it is not easy to rotate the bathtub with the cared person inside. Furthermore, it is necessary to transport the bathtub with the cared person into the bathroom to supply hot water into the bathtub. Therefore, to assist the cared person in bathing, the caregiver still has to use a considerable amount of time and labor.
In the bathing aid disclosed in the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-116745, a commercial product of which is the “CHAIR IN BATH” manufactured by OG GIKEN CO., LTD., the bathtub has a door on one side of its body, and the wheelchair can be separated into the seat unit and the bogie unit. With the door of the bathtub open, when the wheelchair carrying the cared person is pushed close to the bathtub and brought into contact with the bathtub, the seat unit carrying the cared person slides into the bathtub, leaving the bogie unit below the bottom of the bathtub, i.e. in the outside of the bathtub. After that, the door is closed, and hot water is supplied into the bathtub to let the cared person bathe.
The above bathing aid is integrated with a water supply system, which to some extent reduces the workload on the caregiver. However, the above bathing aid is large-sized and requires a sizeable installation space because it is designed for use in nursing care facilities or similar facilities where the installation space can be easily located. Therefore, it is very difficult to install the above bathing aid in ordinary houses for home nursing care. Thus, people have been demanding for a small-size bathing aid that occupies only a limited space and can be used even in an ordinary house. The reduced size will be advantageous also for nursing care facilities because it allows them to use plural sets of bathing aids.
Cared persons who use the bathing aid may often have difficulty in moving by themselves, or sometimes in speaking by themselves. Therefore, with respect to safety, adequate measures are necessary to protect the cared person from dangerous situations during bathing. Conventional bathing aids, however, are designed on the assumption that caregivers would be there to watch the cared person at all times during bathing. Attention has not been adequately paid to the safety under the condition where the caregiver is not watching.
The inherent purposes of bathing aids are to keep the body of the cared person clean, to let the cared person feel relaxed and refreshed by bathing so that she or he can be in good mental condition, and sometimes to expect curative effects on the body from heating or other treatment. In respect of such inherent purposes, it is important to obtain better effects than conventionally obtained.
The present invention addresses the above problems, and the first objective of the invention is to provide a user-friendly bathing aid that reduces the workload on caregivers and can be easily operated even by those who are relatively small in body size and/or weak in physical strength.
The second objective of the present invention is to provide a bathing aid that requires only a small installation space.
The third objective of the present invention is to provide a bathing aid that offers high safety to the cared person, i.e. the bather.
The fourth objective of the present invention is to provide a bathing aid that enables the cared person to have a good feeling of satisfaction, and that provides high bathing effects.